Tworivers
Copyright© 2025 by Harry Carton
Chapter 4: The Apache Nation
Great Buffalo looked at the Wind Rider’s watch, saw the second hand moving. He nodded to Wind Rider. He and Sky Eagle moved silently to the left. Thomas marveled at how quickly the Apache could figure things out. He moved to the right, counting his heartbeats ‘til he got to forty.
NOW! He shot an arrow at the Crow leader. Lucky shot! It hit his target in the neck. The young Crow tumbled to the ground, silently.
He sent another arrow at a warrior dragging a young boy, his hand over the child’s mouth. The warrior collapsed with a muffled groan. Wind Rider could see two others fall, the sharp aluminum arrows protruding from their throats. The Apache warriors were snipers! They were silent killers.
The young boy who had been in the grip of Wind Rider’s second target screamed and ran into the nearest tipi. Soon enough the camp started to come to life. Men and women came out of their tipis, spears and knives in their hands. There was a general melee and Thomas could not get another shot off.
The Crow warriors bolted for their horses, only to find the string of horses weren’t there! Sky Eagle had taken the Crow mounts some distance away. Great Buffalo had his knife out and was killing the Crow who came into the clearing where the horses should have been. Then an arrow came whistling out of the darkness. How could Sky Eagle have seen enough to find a target? Did he have Night Vision eyeballs?
By now the Kiowa men came chasing the fleeing Crow. The invaders were quickly overwhelmed, as spears came slashing at night raiders. When the butcher’s bill was totaled, there were thirteen dead Crow, one Kiowa with a knife wound to his shoulder, and a three dead Kiowa sentries. There were about a dozen Crow warriors still alive, surrounded by twice that number of Kiowa spears.
Sky Eagle trotted into the clearing with two dozen Crow horses on a rope lead. He looked around in the moonlight. Great Buffalo was covered with blood, none of it his. The Kiowa warriors were edgy but not attacking the Apaches. From his place of concealment, the sole Chiricahua strode out guarded by a squad of Kiowa. Thomas Wind Rider was being very still, his hands open and trying to look as friendly as possible.
A woman strode into the clearing screaming, “BUTCHERS! I’ll kill them all!” It seemed that some Crow had killed a Kiowa woman in her sleep, and then slit the throats of two young girls in the same tipi. She went up to the nearest Crow and slit his throat with a deep cut that went from ear to ear. There was blood everywhere.
She was restrained by two of the Kiowa men, but when she finally told them that they’d killed the woman of Tall Pine and his two young daughters, the men picked up their spears and set to killing more of the Crow. Soon, there were thirteen more bodies. At least the woman killed her victims quickly, the spears of Kiowa warriors slashed into the abdomen of the Crow they killed -- a long, painful death.
The men of the Kiowa village knew both Great Buffalo and Sky Eagle -- they’d spent many days hunting with the two Coyotero. After he was vouched for, Thomas Wind Rider was allowed to put his hands down and was introduced to the head man, a very old man named Elk Hunter.
Elk Hunter said “You do not sound like Coyotero Apache. Yet you use the words of Coyotero.”
“This is correct,” Thomas Wind Rider said. “I am of the Chiricahua tribe. But I came to the Coyotero in a big wind, in a spirit-canoe. I came from another time and another place, where I was Thomas Two Rivers. Now I am called Thomas Wind Rider.”
Great Buffalo came up to Thomas and opened his own mouth. He inserted his fingers and pulled out the wristwatch he’d been given. He gave it back to the Wind Rider, who held it daintily by the strap. “I had to put it somewhere, while I was using the bow.” He smiled, and shrugged.
Thomas looked at it -- it was still ticking along. Good thing it’s waterproof. Then he wiped it on his buckskins, buckled it to his wrist and smiled back at Great Buffalo.
The sun was rising in the east, hours later, as a large contingent of Kiowa and Coyotero Apaches came into view, arrows already in their bows. Tall Pine looked at the mangled bodies of the Crow in the clearing. “I see that you have already dealt with the Crow that Winona, daughter of Nantan, warned us of.”
Elk Hunter said, “We did, and killed them all. But there is serious news for you Tall Pine. Your woman and your two young girls were killed.”
Tall Pine dismounted quickly and grabbed his spear. “Is there any Crow still alive?” He threw his spear into the dirt with great force.
“No. But the son of the Crow war chief led this attack. He was killed by Wind Rider in the fighting.”
Tall Pine nodded, then walked slowly to his tipi. “Dark Wolf?”
Great Buffalo said, “Killed by the same Crow before we came to your village.”
At his tipi, Tall Pine found two warriors who didn’t want to let him in. “Your family is still there, Tall Pine.”
“I must see them. Let me pass.”
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